The Human Element
by Okami-chan
Summary: Pre 2018 Video Game - Pre Hostile Takeover Novel - Mary Jane actually prefers when Spider-man has to fight the costumed nutjobs.


**Title **The Human Element  
**Author's Notes **This is meant to take place pre-Hostile Takeover, (which is pre-game for those unaware) at some point before the break up. Mostly just a fairly introspective character piece. Part of the Tying Up Loose Ends story.

* * *

Mary Jane had a guilty little secret. She actually prefered when Spider-man had to fight one of the costumed nutjobs over the normal human element. The costumed nutjobs sent Peter limping home, and suffering from nightmares for days, and it was sad that Mary Jane preferred that to having Peter lying awake in bed clutching at her and staring into the distance with haunted eyes. She'd never get anything out of him during those times. All she could do was hold him and press kisses to his unresponsive mouth until she could draw him out of his waking nightmare.

When Spider-man slipped into her bedroom window, rain following him in, and stumbled to her bed without even taking his mask off, she knew what to expect. She pressed her lips together, but pulled the covers back for Peter to climb in next to her. His cold, wet costume sent chills down her arms and legs. His mask pressed into her neck, and she could hear his unsteady breath in her ear.

She ran her hands over his chest and back first, as she always did when he came to her like this. She checked for rents and tears in his costume and then touched the skin underneath, seeking open wounds. All she found this time was bare, smooth skin, though underneath long gashes in his suit. She stroked the muscled arms wrapped firmly around her. She'd long given up even trying to leave his embrace when he came in like this. She'd give him an earful in the morning; he wouldn't listen when he was like this. But it meant that she wouldn't be able to grab a towel to dry the rain off his skin, or soak up the puddles he'd dripped over her floors, and the water soaking into her mattress.

She made do; Mary Jane reached up and tugged at the lenses of Spider-man's eyes, pulling the mask free from Peter's face She wiped the rain off his face with her comforter. His hair was soaked through, and she couldn't do much about that with just her comforter. So she smoothed his mussed locks back.

Peter shivered under her touch, his face turning towards her hands. He still clung to her, her nightgown bunched in his fists, and he buried his face back into her neck and hair. His legs tangled with hers and he shifted only to tighten his grip on her.

The chill from his costume quickly soaked through her nightgown, and she shivered as she tried to bring him into the present with her. She'd never get them warm and to sleep if she didn't.

She knew she had succeeded when his shivering lips sought hers, and his hands opened to caress her back. Then she knew she could finally peel the wet spandex off his chill skin. She rubbed her hands over his shoulders, tyring to bring warmth back into him.

Peter didn't seem to even notice the cold, his mouth tracing invisible lines along her jaw, down her neck so he could mouth at the exposed skin of her bosom.

Her nightgown and panties landed on the floor next to his discarded costume and he pressed her into the mattress as he rocked into her. Peter ran fingers through her hair, and then pulled her leg against his waist to lever himself into a better angle.

She had been with Peter long enough to know this was less about his desire for her, and more about his need for reassurance from whatever he'd just been through. She supposed she should be glad that he came to her for this rather than Black Cat. Sometimes though she wished it didn't mean waking up at… three o'clock in the morning because Peter found something bad again. Mary Jane turned her eyes away from the clock stare up at the ceiling instead.

She really shouldn't be like this. Peter helped a lot of people, and suffered any time he failed. She wanted to be a part of that didn't she? And sometimes that meant giving him whatever information she could dig up in her research, or holding him and assuaging his bleeding heart. She thought she could be doing so much more than this, though.

Mary Jane kissed his cheek, her arms sliding around his shoulders. It helped that even like this he felt so good against her: powerful, exciting. She almost couldn't help but to react to his need to match his racing pulse with gasps and moans. To dig her nails in when he groaned against her neck. She ached for him as he increased the speed of his thrusts, her legs locked around his waist. Her bed creaked, but he still didn't slow down.

Words spilled out of his mouth, breathless and senseless, lost against her skin. Until they stopped with one last heavy groan, his body shuddering as he pressed in.

Mary Jane could feel the pulse of her own release and gasped into his shoulder.

At least they were both warm now. And he'd let her go back to sleep again.

* * *

Peter didn't talk about it, even in the morning, when she woke up to the smell of pancakes and bacon cooking in the kitchen. The Spider-man costume hung in the bathroom, still damp, and the mask turned inside out to let the network of electronics inside dry. Mary Jane wiped her hands on her robes and accepted both the plate and the kiss Peter offered when she came into the kitchen. He'd dug a few of his spare clothes out of her closet and didn't linger long after breakfast. He needed to get to his internship and she needed to get to work.

Back before she started working for the Bugle it would sometimes take Mary Jane a couple days before she could find anything about what Spider-man had been involved in. She'd almost always find out, though. Spider-man's involvement (if discovered) was guaranteed to get coverage, if only for the times Jameson would rip into and distort everything Spider-man did with his latest batch of libel. Sometimes she never found out what had happened, either the news somehow didn't get wind of it, or someone was covering it up (Fisk would always be her first suspect for that). Peter would never tell her. Never. The costumed nutjobs were almost always a story. His waking nightmares he kept to himself.

Working at the Bugle now, she heard about it the next day oftentimes, even if the story would somehow manage to not end up published.

Mary Jane kept her ears and eyes open when she got to work that day. It didn't take long. She caught Eddie and Ben Urich huddled over photographs and caught the words 'Spider-man', 'gang', and 'initiation'. She managed to also sneak a glimpse at the spread of dark photos.

' _Oh, Peter._'

She wondered if it was the redhead that had made him seek her out. He didn't always come to her apartment. Sometimes he'd go to his back to his place, where she had found him curled up on his bed on more than one random late night visit. (Not so random, she didn't like when he didn't reply after investigating seemingly suspiciously innocuous warehouses). The photos told a lot of the story. People hanging from webbing strewn about an open warehouse. Women laid in a line on the floor, brutalized. She only had a moment to take it all in before Ben and Eddie noticed and glared at her. It told her enough of the story, though.

She had the whole day to consider it, and not a word from Peter. She texted him at about 9pm, when she still hadn't heard from him. '_You out and about?'_

She didn't get a reply for an hour, and it was not the answer she thought she would get. '_No. I'm home. About to go to sleep. Everything ok?_'

Mary Jane rolled her eyes, because of course he'd ask that. _'Yeah, Pete. Just checking.'_

She grabbed her bag and headed out.

* * *

Mary Jane turned the doorknob as quietly as possible, trying to squeeze through the door before it creaked and announced her arrival.

The light through the one window in the apartment shone on cluttered surfaces, even the stove had stuff sitting on it. The bed next to the door protested, and Mary Jane glanced over, but Peter was only turning in his sleep, pulling the covers over his shoulder. She shut the door as carefully as possible, wincing at the soft click. Then set her bag on the floor and her jacket on the chair.

Mary Jane sat on the edge of Peter's bed and slid an arm over his shoulder. She could feel him tense, and knew he was awake. "It's me, Pete." She waited for him to relax before she levered herself the rest of the way onto the bed next to him.

"MJ? Wh' time 's it?" he blearily asked as she laid her head next to his.

"Almost midnight. It's okay. Just go back to sleep."

The bed frame creaked and groaned as Peter shuffled himself around so he could face her. His half-lidded eyes blinked at her as he tugged her against him and away from the edge of the bed. "Sh'ldn't be out b' yerself s' late."

Mary Jane huffed. "I can take care of myself," she snipped.

Peter grumbled and buried his face in her neck. "S'rry. Worry 'bout you."

Mary Jane slid her fingers through his hair, and then rested her cheek against the top of her head. "I know. Me too."

"You hate my apartment," he mumbled into her neck, though he was more coherent than when he first started talking, "So, what brought you here?"

The red head's mangled corpse flickered through Mary Jane's mind. "Nothing. Just… Wanted to see you."

His grunt rocked his shoulders. "Liar."

She grimaced into his hair. He knew her too well. She really didn't like his messy, cluttered, tiny apartment, ('_Seriously, Pete, prioritize better so you can have a half-decent place to live._') and he knew it. She chewed on her lower lip while she ran her fingertips down the line of his spin through his cotton tee. "I heard about last night..."

She could feel the faint flutter against her neck as Peter opened his eyes and his muscular arms tightened around her. He didn't say anything, though his breath stopped the gentle wash over her shoulder.

She tightened her arms around him, trying to tell him in that simple gesture that everything would be okay, and she was here for him. "Urich was able to trace the weapons in the warehouse to one of the smugglers that's been previously connected to Fisk."

Peter snarled at the name, his breath coming back in a rush.

"Robbie won't let Urich run the connection though. But I thought Spider-man could use the information as a place to start."

Peter lifted his head from her shoulder and looked down at Mary Jane, his eyes hard. "You don't happen to have a name for that smuggler, do you?"

Mary Jane did, and a place he could be found during the day on top of that.

When she woke the next morning, the air chill against her bare skin, she wasn't surprised to find herself alone in the apartment, the window unlocked.

Mary Jane wondered if this was all the good she could do. She sat up, and combed her fingers through her tangled hair before grabbing her cloths off the floor to get dressed. A plan hatched to help Peter more directly while she got dressed.

* * *

**Author's End Note **Queue Hostile Takeover. Da da DUUUUUUM. Giggles Honestly though, I didnt have any idea where I was going with this when I started this particular story. All I had was the opening line, and the image of Spidey crawling into bed with MJ. I didn't even know where it sat on the timeline. Also needed a break from where I'm currently at in The Hardest Decisions, but not really feeling the smut. Hopefully this would slide nicely into the novel, though it's probably anywhere from a week to months before hand.

I recently read that screenreaders create a break in the flow of the story with what I normally use for scene breaks, so guess I'm using line breaks. Maybe at some point I'll go back and fix my other Spidey fics... Eheheh... So I just realized that Tying Up Loose Ends has **none** of my scene breaks. Not one. OMG. I can't fix it now. I need to check my other fics as well. FFN ate my scene breaks. I'll have them fixed before the weekend's out. Promise.


End file.
